A biometric is a unique, measurable characteristic or trait of a human being for automatically recognizing or verifying identity. Biometric capture is a term used that generally refers to the sensing and conveyance of physical attributes of a user including finger prints, palm prints, voice prints, retinal patterns, facial orientations, body temperature, and the like. Biometric devices have been used for user identification in security systems to enable system access.
Fingerprints are one example of a biometric which can be readily captured. Fingerprint identification (sometimes referred to as dactyloscopy) is the process of comparing known friction skin ridge impressions (minutia) from fingers (or palms) to determine if the impressions are from the same finger or palm of a known print. The flexibility of friction ridge skin means that no two finger or palm prints are ever exactly alike (never identical in every detail of minutia). A known print is the intentional recording of the friction ridges of the fingers and/or palm, usually with black ink rolled across a contrasting white background such as a white fingerprint card. Fingerprints can also be recorded digitally using any of a wide array of fingerprint scanning devices presently available in commerce. Fingerprint scanning devices have been used for identification, authentication and verification purposes.
Many high-end multi-function document reproduction systems known in the arts are capable of performing complex functions which may require extended operator training. In a print job or copy job document reproduction environment, device operators must program the complex system to perform specialized tasks required for a quality result of a customer's print/copy job. Such complex print devices are capable of perform a plurality of diverse workflows. The availability of complex printing systems has greatly expanded the number of paper media types that may be specified for a particular print job depending on print engine characteristics and the output quality desired. In order to accommodate the proliferation of print media types, complex printing systems need to be specifically configured and reconfigured to the desired set of device specific settings optimized for a particular print media type and workflow process. In order to consistently provide an optimal work product, device operators of such complex document reproduction systems must manually program the print system to handle different print media stocks to meet customer job requirements. This often is a time consuming process during which the document system is not running at capacity. This is particularly a problem in busy document reproduction print/copy job environments where the number of jobs desired to be performed in a single day is large.
In many of today's print engines, information regarding various complex device specific settings required for certain print media attributes is entered manually when an operator desires to run a new print job requiring a new print media. Manual entry for complex settings can be time consuming. It may be difficult to ensure that the configuration settings were entered correctly. An incorrect system setting may not even be noticeable until a large volume of the print job has already been run. Further, it may be difficult to determine whether the existing system settings optimized for a specific set of print media attributes is current or has been updated in a timely manner as more optimal and new configuration settings became available. Furthermore, complex internal components running at very high throughput rates using configuration settings not optimized for a particular media may lead to excessive device component wear, breakdown, and ultimately a system failure. Thus it is important to be able to quickly, easily, and properly configure a complex print system device to a set of device specific system settings which have been optimized for various print media types and various workflow processes.
Since such complex print systems are capable of performing different workflows, regular users thereof often need to reprogram the print device to perform their particular workflow each time they approach the device. Such users may not be properly trained and may not readily understand the inherent complexities of the print system settings. Further, certain workflow processes may be common to a particular group of users who normally perform the same kinds of document reproduction functions. Other workflows may be tailored to a specific type of user whose job function requires them to configure the print device to perform another entirely different function. In some print/copy job environments, it may further be desirable to prevent certain users from configuring the system to perform particular workflows or prevent them from configuring a device without authorization.
Accordingly, what is needed in this art are increasingly sophisticated systems and methods which utilizes a fingerprint scanner to quickly and easily configure a complex document reproduction device to a set of custom settings and defined workflow processes using a sequence of fingerprint scans.